Practicing Nonduality

Why do we tend to think things are “either—or”? Is such duality truly an illusion? We are so used to thinking in simple comparisons that we assume duality is just the nature of things. But if we look a little closer, life is more complex. Take any polar opposites and you will find that there are more than two alternatives. For example, “day” and “night”—we have dawn, dusk, noon, and so on.

Some people think of nonduality as moving beyond individual awareness to “merge” with the cosmos. But is that appropriate or even necessary? Can we accept the challenge of viewing the world from multiple perspectives while maintaining our sense of centered self? Can we train ourselves to see more than two options as a matter of habit?

What helps you keep from being dualistic in your thinking? Why would you bother?

In 1996, I was the first Canadian appointed by the then Prime Minister Chrétien to represent Canada on the APEC Business Advisory Council, holding the small and medium size enterprise portfolio. My professional work has focused on teaching, speaking, writing, and consulting on service in its broadest sense:

1. Services in economic development: Since 1981, I have developed and taught graduate courses on the management and marketing of international services, consulted with governments on services trade issues & negotiation strategies, trained over 1,500 trade officers & 45 service industry associations to assist service exporters more effectively, and trained over 10,500 small service exporters in 86 countries to export services successfully. I’ve written 8 handbooks for the International Trade Centre UNCTAD/WTO, and developed online tools to assess services export competitiveness.

2. Services to address social issues: In 1972, I began the first BA-granting Women Studies program at City University of New York. Since then I have worked on a range of social issues including gender, homophobia, and labor force development. With Valerie Ward, I co-developed the Employment Readiness Scale™ (www.EmploymentReadiness.info) to help organizations assist their clients to be successful in their work lives.

3. Service as a spiritual practice: In my work on spiritual development, I have written articles focused particularly on feminist spirituality, the importance of language in shaping how we view and understand the world, and the nature of the Will in spiritual practice.

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I think the only choice that will enable us to hold to our vision...is one that abandons the concept of naming enemies and adopts a concept familiar to the nonviolent tradition: naming behavior that is oppressive~Barbara Deming